


Anywhere Is

by justbygrace



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, F/M, trigger warnings apply
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-31
Updated: 2017-01-31
Packaged: 2018-09-21 04:46:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9532070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justbygrace/pseuds/justbygrace
Summary: Ten & Rose as mental patients.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: This story deals with mental disorders and their effects. Please don't read if any of that is triggering to you.

Sometimes she isn't certain if there is a world where people function like they do on the telly or if that's as made-up as the Disney cartoons they play on repeat in the day lounge. Jack says there is. But Jack also sometimes believes he's a fighter pilot from the 40's and sometimes runs around stark ass naked so she isn't entirely sure if she can trust what he says. If she thinks really hard and if she actually takes her meds every time they tell her too, she can remember something that isn't white walls and nurses and doctors and a whole ward of people sometimes she likes and sometimes doesn't and it has more to do with her than it does with them (with a few notable exceptions).

She was diagnosed young. Lucky they said, lucky they caught it young, lucky there was good meds on the market, lucky that...she's sure there was more after that, but she never remembers. Because it was basically a load of bullshit spouted by people who didn't know what to do with anything that wasn't the status quo and people that weren't "normal" and didn't fit in their damn little boxes. Her mum used to tell her they meant well, but she didn't give a fuck about what they did or didn't mean; she needed them to shut up. 

Whatever life she may have had outside of here - a here that depends on the day and what she remembers - is blurred around the edges and she doesn't strain to remember it. It doesn't matter anyway. They've decided she isn't leaving unless she "demonstrates a greater interest in complying with regulations." Basically she's got a life sentence because that isn't ever going to happen. 

It's not so bad, really. There's Jack. He's always fun and good for a few laughs. There's Donna. She sees things that aren't there and sometimes it's fun to mess with her, but when she realizes it, you'd better run because Donna's fist reaches back to the Dark Ages before it hits you. Martha's smart. Like genius, Mensa level smart. Rumor has it that she was on the verge of some medicine breakthrough when her brain gave out and she thinks she's a Doctor. Most of the Doctors and nurses let her think that, it's just easier all around. There are others, but she doesn't pay most of them any mind. There's only one that she really cares about anyway.

His name, she thinks, is John Smith. Such a boring name for the most fascinating person she's ever met. She prefers it when he's the Doctor. Not a Doctor like Martha, but a different kind, a more interesting kind. He's always reinventing himself and she's never sure what he's going to be. Sometimes he is an alien traveling his way through space and time. Sometimes he is a human living a life day after day. Sometimes he teaches at a school for boys. Sometimes he is fighting a war, sometimes he is rescuing the oppressed; sometimes he is happy and upbeat, sometimes he grouses and growls and paces and breaks things. 

And his stories. His stories are fanciful and amazing, scary and awe-inspiring, interesting and inspiring. If she is no longer certain what kind of life is outside the walls, she is convinced the Doctor's stories are real. Sometimes he weaves her into the story and sometimes he adds in Jack or Donna or Martha or Jethro or Sky or Mickey, but mostly her, mostly her. She becomes the Doctor's companion: Rose Tyler, Bad Wolf, and together they travel through space and time. When he is upset his stories become vindictive, leaving her behind, and when he is genial, he takes them to places where they hold hands and promise forever.

The Doctors (the real ones) don't much like the Doctor - the real one, she calls him in her head - and they don't like his influence over her. At first they do everything they can to dissuade her, trying to tell her he's dangerous or he's going to hurt her or some other nonsense that she either already knows or doesn't care about. When that doesn't work, they try to keep them apart in other ways - separate schedules, new mandatory classes, introducing her to others - that's actually how she originally met Jack. But they aren't smarter than her Doctor and he appears out of nowhere, grabbing her hand and whisking her off.

He takes them to abandoned back rooms or empty corridors and he even knows how to breach security and get out on the roof. And he holds onto her hand and tells her stories, stories about them and all the adventures they're going to go on - or adventures they were currently going on. He sometimes swears that it's happening right at that very moment, in parallel universes, and she stares at his warm eyes and believes him. 

Everything makes more sense when he's around - the blurred edges become more defined, the grey areas clear up - and the Doctor always claims she makes him better too, helps him to remember who he is more often. Eventually the staff stops telling them they can't be together; nobody could deny they were better off together. After the ban was lifted, things got a lot calmer, but he would still sometimes surprise her by grabbing her hand and whispering run. 

Time was fluid to her, always had been, and sometimes she thought she'd been there with him in this place for thousands of years and sometimes she wasn't sure if she'd known him more than a week and so when they came in the afternoon, came to the Day Room where she was sitting with her head on the Doctor's shoulder and listening to him tell her about telly's that could steal faces, she wasn't expecting anything other than a routine inspection or interrogation. It wasn't routine. They told her she could go. Just like that, she was free to go.

She didn't know what to do or say or think, she could only sit there numbly while they went on and on about how well she was doing and how they really thought she would be able to handle it on her own and how far she'd come. Eventually it dawned on her that they meant for her to go, to just up and leave and walk out and not come back. And they meant for her to do it on her own, alone, without anyone, and, specifically, without the Doctor.

The next time she was aware of her surroundings she was in the Quiet Room. It wasn't the first time she'd been in there, but it had been a long time, since before the Doctor. She was calmed by it at first, the knowledge they hadn't kicked her out yet, but then the white walls started to close in and she couldn't breathe and she was all alone, by herself, and what if she wasn't actually there anymore, what if she was in a parallel universe and she threw herself against the wall, screaming, crying, demanding, begging, pleading.

And then she felt it, ever so quietly, through the wall, the sound of a heartbeat, a rat-a-tat that meant a living soul, a quick beat that announced the Doctor's and his stupid heart condition and she pressed herself close, close, closer still, straining to hear him, to know that he was still there and she'd get back to him, she would, she would.

They let her out. Of course they did. Probably in thirty-six hours - standard operating time - but she didn't know for sure. All she knew was that she was running because the Doctor was standing on the far side of the hall and he was talking to Donna and not looking at her and then he was and he was running and her arms were around him and he was still there and so was she and she didn't care about anything else. 

Sometime they might try to tell her she needs to go again. And maybe sometime they'll trying to let him out. But the Doctor has a plan and back-up plan and a back-up to the back-up plan and she's good with that because he holds her hand all the time now and rarely lets her out of his sight and she doesn't really think anyone will be stupid enough to try to separate them again.


End file.
